


So Conflicted

by Dirty_Corza



Category: Twelfth Night (1996), Twelfth Night - Shakespeare
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Gender Issues, Genderfluid Character, M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-20
Updated: 2016-02-20
Packaged: 2018-05-22 07:17:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6070174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dirty_Corza/pseuds/Dirty_Corza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Viola|Cesario comes to terms with their gender.</p>
            </blockquote>





	So Conflicted

The first time Viola looked into a mirror and saw Cesario looking back at her, she had mourned. She mourned the loss of her brother Sebastian. She mourned the loss of Viola. She mourned the loss of everything that had made her her, aside from the spirit that drove her to do whatever she had to, to survive in this hostile country.

By the time the Duke asked Cesario to plead his love to Olivia, Viola was comfortable in this new skin. She was locked away, behind the mask of her brother's face and her own heart. After all, Cesario had never been intended to be her alone. _“I am all the sisters of my father's house, and all the brothers also.”_ Being comfortable in Cesario's skin, though, was entirely different from wanting that which she pretended to want. For to desire a woman was a foreign idea, especially when her Duke had stolen her heart so well.

The moment she realized Olivia was in love with Cesario, this poetic caricature of a pair of twins, Viola felt her own heart ache for lies to be made truth. As it was, they were locked at an impasse. Her own heart aching for Orsino, his heart yearning for Olivia, and Olivia in turn wishing after Cesario.

Viola didn't see then the looks Master turned on Serving Man, too busy trying to hide the desire in Cesario's eyes. Cesario felt the heat of his master's breath on his neck and felt his body stirring in ways he didn't quite understand. When their lips nearly touched, Viola was mortified, there in her corner, locked away. How could she let her disguise slip so? Cesario, though, was yearning for something more. That was what drove him to confess his love in as clear of terms as he could, to rail at the duke with his poetic tongue about the love that was tearing Viola apart. 

Three months ago, a shipwrecked girl bound her breasts and made a timid entry into the Duke's court. 

Now, though, on a seaside cliff in the pouring down rain, she watched through a man's eyes as he laid her heart bare. She watched Orsino soften at Cesario's words, and yet, when she thought perhaps her play was over, she felt a pang of unasked for desire, and understood that Cesario wasn't sure he wanted that. Viola had swooned over the thought of the Duke, but Cesario had fallen for Orsino. _“I am all the sisters of my father's house, and all the brothers also.”_ And they were all in love with a man they couldn't have.

That night, as she took off her guise, setting aside binding cloth and mustache, she knew it would never be as easy as just packing the clothes away. Cesario was more than a costume she wore. Cesario was every time she had dressed up as Sebastian in childhood, every time the twins had decided to be one person and see if anyone noticed. As much as some days had Viola wishing so hard to be free of the restrictions, there were also days where Cesario flourished, where taking off the mustache was like removing a piece of his soul.

And then there were nights like this one, where neither was happy with the idea of having to stay one or the other for the rest of their life.

They didn't know that tomorrow would be the last time they'd be forced to wear Cesario's face. They didn't know that it would be the happiest they'd been since three months ago when their world ended.

They didn't know that their heart would be broken and mended in the course of minutes.

They didn't know how much they would ache that when Orsino kissed them, their brother only saw the sister. They didn't know, as they went to sleep the night before as neither Viola nor Cesario, how much they wanted Orsino to be thinking of his manservant in that moment.

It was wonderful to be reunited with their twin.

It was terrible to feel as though they had only managed to exchange one mask for another. It might have been a truer mask, able to kiss the man they loved, but it wasn't always with the right lips. Viola was the face worn, but Cesario wasn't gone, merely shut away. An exchange of places that was supposed to make things how they were supposed to be. But it still wasn't right. 

Long hair made her scalp ache. Her corsets made it hard to breathe in all the wrong ways. And when Orsino touched her, she found herself wanting to ask if he had ever entertained the idea of touching Cesario in the same way he now touched his wife.

They didn't notice the way his thumb would trace their upper lip, the way his hand would occasionally slide down between their legs as if looking for something missing. But when he hoarsely whispered “Cesario.” as their hands gripped his shoulders tight, they noticed, and it made their world soar.

“Again,” they pleaded, voice falling to a familiar deepness as their lips brushed against his ear. 

“Cesario,” he groaned, “Is it wrong that I missed that voice.”

Orsino was answered with a laugh, and a familiar boyish smile. “Is it wrong that I've missed using it, my lord?” Cesario's hips moved slowly against Orsino's, relishing in the way Orsino seemed to be nearly as breathless as the first time he had bedded Viola.

“If this be sin, let me take my sin again.” Orsino was near whimpering under his partner, hands stuttering against smooth skin. “How I imagined it then, my manservant spread out beneath me, above me. Hard against me.”

Cesario gasped, unable to stop the eager press of his body to Orsino's. “You would have taken your manservant? Even knowing that you would be condemned for it?”

“I would have.” Orsino pressed eager lips to his lover's. “I had decided as much not long before the reveal was made that you were not all you appeared to be.”

“And were you disappointed, my lord?”

“Not nearly as much as I was overjoyed to be able to kiss those soft lips where all could see. Though, I confess, I was saddened that I would not be able to take you in hand and show how great a pleasure I could show my favorite youth, that no wife would be able to match it.”

They laughed together at that, between kisses and gasps and moans. 

“No regrets, then, that you've married one who is both Viola and Cesario?” Cesario's voice whispered to Orsino at the end of the night.

Orsino shook his head, leaning forward to press a soft kiss to his partner's forehead. “I could never regret finding out that my wife and confidant are still one in the same. I fell in love with Cesario before I met Viola, but it was in good faith that I married her, hoping to find him still inside.”

They fell asleep like that, confessions fresh from lips, and for the first time since they realized Cesario wasn't just another mask, he and Viola felt at peace in their skin.

**Author's Note:**

> There will never be enough written about Viola|Cesario.


End file.
